Sterile GLASS Petri Dishes

Andrew Grant (adgrant at water.waterw.com) wrote:
: >Has anyone come up w/ an effective way of re-STERILIZING the glass
: >dishes over and over again?
: If you have a pressure cooker you could cook them at 15 pounds for
: about 15 minutes. That should do a pretty good job of sterilization. A
: bigger problem might be how to keep them sterile if you store them.
The glass dishes should be thouroughly cleaned before sterilization to remove
any traces of growth medium. An antibacterial dishwashing soap is great;
Palmolive makes one with triclosan, but I'm sure there are other brands
available. The clean, dry dishes should be wrapped tightly in aluminum foil
and autoclaved at 15 PSIG for 45 minutes. A pressure cooker should work fine
for this purpose. Allow the pressure to drop on its own; rapid changes in
pressure/temperature could cause the dishes to shatter. Keep the dishes
wrapped in foil until you are ready to use them. They should remain sterile.
Good luck!
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